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Controversy Arises Over Taliban Option In Medal of Honor

Posted by Soulskill on from the yes-this-again dept.

eldavojohn writes "CVG is covering the controversy surrounding players' ability to play as a member of the Taliban in EA's Medal of Honor multiplayer. Fox News hopped on the wagon, interviewing a Gold Star mom whose son died in Iraq. She said, 'My son didn't get to start over when he was killed. His life was over and I had to deal with that every day. There's 1200 families from Afghanistan that have to live with this every day. And we live it — it's not a game... EA is very cavalier about it: "Well, it's just a game." But it isn't a game to the people who are suffering from the loss of the children and loved ones.' EA's response to this criticism of giving players the objective to 'gun down American troops' was this: 'Medal Of Honor is set in today's war, putting players in the boots of today's soldier... We give gamers the opportunity to play both sides. Most of us have been doing this since we were seven. If someone's the cop, someone's got to be the robber, someone's got to be the pirate, somebody's got to be the alien. In Medal Of Honor multiplayer, someone has to be the Taliban.' Of course the story recalls Six Days in Fallujah, which was dropped by Konami following similar controversy. It's clear at least a few people take issue with games surrounding modern conflicts."

40 of 671 comments (clear)

  1. Hypocrisy Isn't Free by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    She said, 'My son didn't get to start over when he was killed. His life was over and I had to deal with that every day. There's 1200 families from Afghanistan that have to live with this every day. And we live it -- it's not a game..

    That's funny, I hear that's what the people on the other side said too, except possibly in another language.

    Last I heard, American soldiers were supposed to be fighting to preserve a way of life, a way which includes freedom of expression.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    1. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by xMilkmanDanx · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There isn't a mod -1 insensitive option.

      And he does have a point, just because we don't hear the other side doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Anytime you're dealing with a 'modern' conflict (as in the events are still fresh) you're going to be stepping on people's losses.

      I do question the wisdom in choosing a real and current conflict as a game setting. An even slightly fictionalized setting, would do much to reduce this negative association.

      --
      I am not in anyway affiliated with Max Cannon
    2. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by wjousts · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sorry, does the idea that people on the other side have families that grief the loss of their loved ones make you uncomfortable?

    3. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by toriver · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Remember: It's not art unless someone is offended. If it offends no-one it is merely entertainment.

      Or we could restrict game topics to pre-1900 conflicts in case there are some long-lived victims around.

    4. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "These days", huh? Well, if you could go back to whatever previous "days" you imagine as the time when freedom of expression wasn't a myth, you'd find that it too was chock full of people like you smugly declaring that "freedom of expression is pretty much a myth these days". They were as wrong then as you are now.

    5. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by Bryansix · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Only this has Everything to do with freedom. Censorship comes in many forms including self censorship and censorship by ridicule.

    6. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, but you can't torture people in Gitmo either so in the end you just have to accept that you can't do everything both sides do.

    7. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

      More to the point, should we ban games where you can play, say, a Mafia enforcer or a member of a Asian Triad? I mean, cops have died battling organized crime.

      In the end, while I can understand families of slain soldiers being opposite, so far as I'm concerned liberty trumps they're objections absolutely.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    8. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by bistromath007 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It has everything to do with it. Freedom is sometimes in poor taste.

    9. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by idontgno · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Censorship comes in many forms including self censorship

      Basically true.

      and censorship by ridicule.

      Now you lost it. Ridicule isn't censorship. If's freedom from censorship. If I ridicule you, I hope you keep talking, so I can keep ridiculing.

      If ridicule censors you, that's you self-censoring for invalid reasons. Freedom requires courage sometimes. At some level, you can't blame someone else for your own lack of courage. (Yes, at the extreme, that means courage unto death. It's been done, and someday in the future it may need doing again.) But courage in the face of asshattery isn't so extreme, and the lack of it is properly risible.

      --
      Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
    10. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by PitaBred · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So... they're offending their target market, going to fail in the marketplace because nobody will buy the game, and collapse as a company? Great! Free market at work!

      Or it offends a few busybodies who make a bunch of noise, and... life goes on.

      If you don't like what they do, don't buy the damn game. It's not that hard. Just refuse to open your wallet when they hold you at gunpoint. Life's too short to get offended. You don't have a right to not be offended. You have a right to free speech and association.

      --
      My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
    11. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by Bemopolis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Which is funny, since Gitmo was the result of assuming that we COULD do everything both sides do.

      --
      "I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
    12. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by KahabutDieDrake · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think you don't have the foggiest idea of the facts of the case. The so called ground zero mosque is more complicated and yet simpler than you imagine. High five for buying into the media blitz. Now lets have some facts to fuck up your opinions.

      The planned community center is NOT on ground zero. It's blocks away. Roughly equidistant from 2 other mosques already in place in the area. The "symbol" isn't a symbol. It's a freaking YMCA with slightly different religious overtones. The only appreciable difference is, right now, this country likes Christians and doesn't like Muslims. Racism, religionism, whatever you want to call it. This whole thing is about HATE mongering. The people behind this community center are the kind of people we need in this country. Smart, rational, empathetic, open minded and willing to compromise. The kind of people AGAINST this center are the kind of people we SHOULD be putting up against walls. They are extremists, and zealots. Both of which, no matter the creed, should be removed from society as they are of no benefit, and we KNOW THAT as a society.

      If providing a community center in NY, where exists dozens of similar centers from dozens of creeds is counter productive.... well I don't even know where to begin. Are you AWARE of your bias? Do you just not care? NY was once known as the melting pot. It was the place where dozens of religions, creeds and races mixed and more or less got along. If that is now not true anymore because of "ground zero".... well, I guess we can declare a winner can't we?

    13. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by MakinBacon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You don't seem to understand that there is NO LEGAL PRECEDENCE for denying a religious group the right to build a place of worship solely because you don't like them. The Constitution's 1st amendment was created with exactly this sort of situation in mind. If we do not allow them to build their mosque/community center, we are denying them one of the most fundamental rights of American law.

    14. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by fishbowl · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >In one word, yes. It's all a matter of sensibility.

      As soon as you define "matter of sensibility" in a way that has universal acceptance *or* can stand as a basis for a legal decision in court, it will be meaningful.

      Like pornography, just because "you know it when you see it", that doesn't make it a reasonable universal standard that can be applied to any given scenario.

      --
      -fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
    15. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I have some perspective. Plenty of it. Would you like some?

      No, we don't stone teenage girls to death, we put them down for how they are fat or ugly to the point where their self esteem gets so low that they commit suicide.

      We don't bury homosexuals, we just kill them

      We don't beat people for listening to certain kinds of music. Even if some are criminals, we just assume All their fans are gang members.

      And of course the Americans have shown their importance of preserving monuments such as all the ones in Hiroshima.

      I mean you can't just say "But they are bad" and act like everything our society does is all high and mighty. Perhaps if you asked them why they are fighting you'd understand a bit more. Not all of them are shooting American troops because their God said so. Some of them dislike the embedded materialistic society we've created and want to stop the greed from spreading out of America. Most of them see this as an invasion, and they are fighting back.

      Torturing people to find out information to protect the soldiers you put there in the first place sure does seem to balance out nicely. Tell me, how does being in the middle east stop people from taking over American Jets? Couldn't those soldiers be manning the airports over here? Maybe then I wouldn't need a full body scanner to take a picture of my junk, instead I'd get someone who is a professional with weapons and demolitions to identify if I'm armed or not.

    16. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by jd · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The US has a health care system? When did that happen?

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    17. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by Jerf · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, we don't stone teenage girls to death, ... don't bury homosexuals, we just kill them, ... don't beat people for listening to certain kinds of music.

      No, in fact we do not do any of those things. We in fact condemn those things and tend to prosecute and imprison the individuals who do those things. Just about the only way we could show our disagreement more strongly is to execute the individuals, but better than even odds says you'd consider that barbaric to, which leaves we with not much more we can do to show our displeasure.

      When the Taliban stone girls to death or actually, factually publicly execute gay people by burying them alive, they do so as the ruling government in question. If there is a "we" there, if there is in fact a broad public consent that this sort of stuff is OK, that's what it looks like.

      I utterly reject any suggestion that there is moral equivalence between the US and the Taliban, and say it says more about the person doing the equating's inability or refusal to see evil than about the US. The US isn't perfect, what a shocker, but the idea that we would publicly execute someone, or deeply weave honor killings into our culture, or engage in widespread female genital mutilation, is just absurd.

      (Besides, if we are morally equal no matter what we do than there's no great argument to get any better. You hate X for bruising someone, you hate X exactly equally for going on a mass murder rampage, you've not given X any particular reason to care what you think. Moral equivocation as a technique for trying to get the US to behave better is profoundly, deeply flawed, because it is based on entirely sacrificing the very idea that there is a "better" to be.)

    18. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by Elektroschock · · Score: 4, Insightful

      When you are a solidier it is part of your normal duties that you could get killed in action. There is no moral argument in complaining about getting shot when you occupy a foreign nation and your nation attempts to impose your societal model on their nation. Many Afghans don't agree with Taliban opinions but many Taliban are Afghan while the occupying forces are not. I am not arguing that the invasion of Afghanistan is "wrong" because I don't moralize the military interests of the United States.

      Furthermore, soldiers are supposed to obey and do their duty, not to "fight to preserve a way of life, a way which includes freedom of expression" or pursue other personal political agendas. That is propaganda for the uninitiated. A military is rooted in the traditions when soldiers were like prisoners and 30% of them got killed in a single battle.

      Unlike warfare the current occupation of Afghanistan implies insignificant losses of coalition soldiers. That does not require all the mourning and respect for those killed in action, heroism tales and phrases like in a real war. Likely more Americans die in the making of the hollywood war movies about their heroes than in battle: car accidents, drugs, gun crime - you name it.

      Americans follow a strategy of their chess master Bobby Fischer and sacrifice the pawns of their opponents, even use machines to kill. I think war without risk leads to moral decay, it is not a fair fight. It is very useful that soldiers die because it reminds the nation that engaging in war should not be taken too easy and their leaders bear a responsibility for its military planning.

    19. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by alexo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I can walk into a medical center and get the best healthcare available in the world for me or my family. I'm unclear what your point is. That I have to pay for it?

      You can also get the best justice available in the world, with the same caveat.

    20. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by fishexe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Mod parent down. I know this family, and it is highly insensitive of you to put it this way.

      Because innocent Afghans who've lost family members to US bombing are totally different from Americans who've lost loved ones to Taliban attacks, and it's highly insensitive to make it sound like they have something in common, right?

      --
      "I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
    21. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by Joce640k · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I wonder how many enemy's sons her son killed...oh, wait, they don't count.

      --
      No sig today...
    22. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by bloodhawk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      last I checked there were more than 1200 afghan families in a similar situation just this year and they weren't even soldiers. So how exactly is it highly insensitive to point out her hypocrisy. If she wants to protest against modern conflict games that's fine, but to protest just against american deaths is purely hypocritical.

    23. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by TubeSteak · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sorry, does the idea that people on the other side have families that grief the loss of their loved ones make you uncomfortable?

      The propagandists try very hard to make sure we aren't uncomfortable about whatever happens to "the other guy."
      Why else would anyone describe the events which transpired in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba & Abu Ghraib, Iraq as "fraternity hazing."

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    24. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, we don't stone teenage girls to death, ... don't bury homosexuals, we just kill them, ... don't beat people for listening to certain kinds of music.

      No, in fact we do not do any of those things. We in fact condemn those things and tend to prosecute and imprison the individuals who do those things. Just about the only way we could show our disagreement more strongly is to execute the individuals, but better than even odds says you'd consider that barbaric to, which leaves we with not much more we can do to show our displeasure.

      The Western lifestyle, which includes being able to drive one's fat ass down to Wal-Mart to buy some plastic shit for next to nothing, is predicated upon slavery, murder, and torture. We simply have abstracted this stuff away from our lives by exporting it to China. You and I and everyone you know is partially responsible for these acts. We know that the people making the crap at the dollar store are likely to be doing it inside a prison camp where they've been imprisoned for their political or religious views, but we still shop there (as a people.) You might like to think that if you saw someone being enslaved before you that you would act; would you then go forth and stop people from selling goods made by slaves? Our government indeed has been one of the largest funding sources for the Taliban, but we still pay our taxes. We are partially complicit, you and I, in the successes of the Taliban. I like to pretend I have the moral high ground sometimes too, but I think reality is substantially different than what you're telling yourself.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    25. Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free by Tom · · Score: 3, Insightful

      In fact, once we have RFID bullets, I'm thinking about setting up an Internet site that brings mothers of soldiers in contact with the mothers of the enemy soldiers their sons have killed.

      It'll be interesting to see how long wars can last after that. War mostly works only because it is anonymous. And we've known that for a long time, it's one of the strongly emotional topics in "Im Westen nichts Neues" ("All Quiet on the Western Front"). We just don't yet have the technology to break through it.

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  2. If her son was alive today.... by russotto · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...he'd be playing war games (not necessarily on a computer) where he played the side of the Taliban.

  3. uhh by buddyglass · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Was there any outcry when Battlefield Viet Nam came out? Because you can totally frag G.I.s in that game, and there are plenty of Viet Nam vets still around.

  4. Counter Strike by Mantrid42 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You've been able to play as a Terrorist in Counter Strike since day one. It came out ten god damn years ago.

  5. Well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My son didn't get to start over when he was killed. His life was over and I had to deal with that every day. There's 1200 families from Afghanistan that have to live with this every day

    I feel your pain. Given our nation's involuntary draft, the servicemen who have died in the war thus far did so against their will. They did not know what they were fighting for, and what they were ready to give up to secure our freedoms.

    Oh, wait. They did. They bleed crimson red so we can maintain our way of life. They chose to join the service.

    You do a disservice to the fallen soldiers memories by acting like the very corrupt, anti-American terrorists. How dare you?

    They died for us. It's our job to keep on living and enjoy life. You've better things to do than to wallow about some videogame.

  6. Re:Humans have always enacted war by Soilworker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Dear Mom,

    You're currently destroying all the effort your son made fighting a threat to your freedom.

    Thanks,
    The talibans.

  7. (obligatory) Nobody is forcing you to buy the game by Hadlock · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ....Even if someone somehow forced you to buy the game, most servers have the option to let you choose your team. Don't like the Taliban, but don't have the time to be a real soldier? Join the American team! Kick some Taliban ass! We're now 10 years deep into the latest conflict. When can people start talking about this conflict as a reflection of our culture? It has to happen sometime.

    --
    moox. for a new generation.
  8. What the fuck ever by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yuppies are die hard hypocrite pussies. Wake me up when a game contains the following plot:

    1. A foreign invader bombs your village and drops leaflets about liberation
    2. You lose one cousin to an errant bomb, another is killed by a rival tribe
    3. The electric grid starts to fail. Riots take over the streets, and you can no longer go to school or even visit family across town
    4. Finally, your mother is forced into prostitution because your father was abducted, tortured, and killed by the invaders
    5. You completely lose your mind and embark on a mission to kill at least one foreigner in retribution for the suffering you have endured

    When that shit happens, video games will be art, and they will start to matter. Any complaining about obviously pro-American games like Medal of Honor is the most pathetic and empty endorsement of patriotism I've heard this week. And trust me, there's a lot of competition.

  9. And so begins the free advertising by TheDarkPassenger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    :)

  10. Re:Too Soon, I Suppose by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There is a game called Red Orchestra: Ostfront 1941-45. As the name implies, it's a (multiplayer) FPS set on WW2 Eastern Front, with Germans and Soviets being two opposing factions. Naturally, it lets you play for either one. It is also fairly realistic, not just in gameplay, but in depictions of various things - i.e. all swastikas and such are in place where they should be, and so on.

    Now, forget Afghanistan, heck, forget even Vietnam - Soviet Union lost 10 million soldiers in WW2. 10 fucking million!

    Which does not preclude Russian gamers today - including those having WW2 vets in the family - from playing this game in general, or playing it specifically for the Germans. If anything, the game is actually strongly appreciated for being one of the few Western games that deal with the subject of Eastern Front (which bore the brunt of the war) at all - most Western movies and games about WW2 focus on Allied, and, more specifically, American involvement, to the point that it seems sometimes that war in Europe started with the landings in Normandy...

  11. To be fair.. by ArbitraryDescriptor · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I can't watch the video, so this is based solely on the summary. It is entirely possible that the 'Gold Star Mom' (huh?) now objects to all depictions of war as entertainment. The summary doesn't say she thinks it's OK to play the US side, but not the side who killed her boy. It just says she objects to war being portrayed as a game.

    This is not a viewpoint that I share, but she's welcome to it.

  12. It's gotta be rough by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's gotta be rough playing Taliban where your only hope of anything is to shoot quickly than run, and hopefully you'll kill someone before you die, if you're lucky. Where if you ever begin to get the upper hand in any fight, your opponent calls in a helicopter that you have no defense against, or even hope to have a defense against. Where your only chance of winning is if your opponent decides to go home. That would be so depressing.

    --
    Qxe4
  13. Re:Um, no by Geldon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Interesting. I didn't know that...

    I do appreciate the existentialism, though. I mean, in the end, doesn't every side of a battle see themselves as the patriots and their opponent as the "bad guys"*?

    *Insert whatever the term of choice is for the conflict in question. Whether it's Fascists, Commies, Terrorists, or Borg, it's still "the bad guys."

  14. All credibility lost by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The moment you ragged on Obama as 'the worst President'. If you honestly think Bush was any better, then you have NO credibility at all with your statement.

    And yes, one thing has something to do with the other, since YOU decided to mention that.

    You comment being marked as 'insightful' says volumes about the readership of this site.

  15. Re:Firest a ground zero mosque now this whats next by rinoid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What's next?

    Watching your social security trust fund go toward buying some more up-armored humvees, obtuse weapon systems, drones, and benefits for the blasted apart.

    Seriously dude, be upset that in the US we spend more than most nations COMBINED on defense. This will be the downfall of our country, that and the leeches that make up the top 2%.

    Ike knew it would lead to this:
    http://www.h-net.org/~hst306/documents/indust.html